How many Civics do you think they make as compared to Goldwings? I seriously doubt they would see sales increases sufficient to offset the cost of adding multiple color options. I mean, I agree that it would be nice, but comparing auto vs. motorcycle production options just isn't valid in my mind. This is especially true for an overseas manufacturing line. If they were making them here in the US like they used to, maybe that would work in our favor.
I agree. Nice as it would be, the practical considerations win out, particularly in this down motorcycle market. The car side has many more dealers in most areas, and they easily swap cars. If a customer wants a Civic in a color a dealer doesn't have, the dealer gets it from another dealer ten miles away; the desired-colored car is driven over, an alternate-colored car driven back. On the motorcycle side, the desired-color motorcycle might be a couple of hundred miles away. Two motorcycles would have to be shipped. Dealers would have to stock--and pay for, and pay interest charges on--many more Goldwings, many of which would end up sitting on showroom floors or in warehouses. Edit: Add
@Brian_Fenner's point, below: The cost of manufacturing, storing, and shipping spare parts in multiple colors for multiple-year models over years.
To accommodate the manufacture and distribution of multiple Goldwing models in multiple colors, Honda would have to manufacture them in far higher numbers than they could hope to sell; the sales numbers just aren't there to justify that level of production.
After WWII (i don't know about before), it was a thing to order a car, tweak it with just the options you wanted, wait until you were notified it was ready, then go to Detroit to pick it up and drive it home. It's obvioulsy impractical to go to Japan to pick up a new Goldwing and drive it home, but an order system where we could order a specific color might work for those willing to pay extra for it and wait months to get it, but it's an open question whether those numbers would attract a company the size of Honda. Anyone who wants a different color than Honda is offering can go to a paint shop.
Honda want to sell as many motorcycles as they possibly can. It's a corporate imperative; it's in Honda's corporate DNA They're not limiting colors because they want to; they're limiting colors because they can't figure out how to do it that makes money. (Or that makes enough money because don't forget opportunity cost.)
Besides, whatever color I get, even if I wasn't crazy about it initially, after a while that color becomes the color of my motorcycle.
